Three organizational design mistakes that are easy to miss

When an organization is not working well, the first explanation is usually a person. Someone is not performing, or two people do not get along, or a manager is not managing. Sometimes that is true. More often, the problem is structural: the organization is designed in a way that makes good performance difficult, regardless of who is in the role.

Accountability that lives in two places at once ¶

The most common structural problem in mid-sized organizations is dual accountability: two people or two teams who are both responsible for the same outcome, with no clear mechanism for resolving disagreement. This is not the same as shared responsibility, which can work well when the boundaries are clear. Dual accountability means that when something goes wrong, both parties can reasonably point to the other.

In practice, this usually shows up as a recurring conflict between departments, or a decision that keeps getting escalated to the executive director because nobody below that level has the authority to make it. The fix is not a new policy. It is a structural change that puts accountability in one place and gives that person the authority to match.

Spans of control that do not match the work ¶

Span of control refers to the number of direct reports a manager has. The right number depends on the nature of the work. A manager overseeing five people doing similar, routine tasks can handle a wider span than a manager overseeing five people doing complex, interdependent work that requires frequent coordination.

Organizations that have grown quickly often end up with spans of control that made sense at a smaller size but no longer work. A program director who managed three staff when the organization had twelve employees may now be managing nine, with no additional support and no reduction in their own program responsibilities. The result is not a performance problem. It is a design problem.

Structure that reflects history rather than strategy ¶

Organizations accumulate structure over time. A team that was created for a specific project becomes permanent. A role that was created for a specific person gets filled by someone else without anyone asking whether the role still makes sense. A reporting line that was established because of a personal relationship between two leaders persists long after both of those people have left.

A useful organizational design review starts by asking not 'how should we organize ourselves' but 'what are we trying to accomplish, and what structure would best support that.' The answer is often different from the current state, and the gap between the two is where the design work happens.

Structure is not the only thing that determines how an organization performs, but it is one of the few things that can be changed deliberately. It is worth looking at carefully before concluding that the problem is the people.